Bill Gates has pledged $US912 million ($1.38 billion) to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, urging world leaders—particularly the United States—to reverse recent cuts to global health funding. Speaking on Monday at a UN development event, Gates warned that “the world is at a crossroads” and that millions of children’s lives are at risk if funding continues to decline.
The Gates Foundation’s latest commitment matches its 2022 donation to the Geneva-based nonprofit, which raises funds every three years to combat some of the world’s deadliest diseases. This new pledge comes amid a 14.4% drop in funding for the Global Fund from 2024 to 2025, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)—part of a broader trend that has driven global development assistance to a 15-year low.
Gates highlighted the human toll of these cuts, pointing to stark disparities in child survival rates. “A kid born in northern Nigeria has a 15% chance of dying before the age of five,” he told Reuters. “You can either be part of improving that or act like it doesn’t matter.”
While praising countries like Australia, which recently pledged $426 million to support Global Fund programs in the Pacific and Southeast Asia, Gates stressed that philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by governments. “I am not capable of making up what the government cuts, and I don’t want to create an illusion of that,” he said, calling on donor nations to maintain funding for proven programs like the Global Fund and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The Microsoft co-founder, who has vowed to give away nearly all of his $US200 billion fortune by 2045, said sustaining investments in primary healthcare and scaling innovations—such as long-acting HIV prevention drugs like lenacapavir—could still save millions of lives and potentially eradicate some of the deadliest childhood diseases.
Despite the grim funding outlook, Gates remains hopeful. “What’s happening to the health of the world’s children is worse than most people realize,” he said. “But our long-term prospects are better than most people can imagine.”
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